The Bats, Gloves, & Gadgets for Baseball Season

Major League Baseball opens this week, and pitchers and batters of all ages have hardball on the brain. So do we: PM took batting practice with the newest high-tech aluminum bats, tested the leather of rival baseball gloves, and found the tech to help you enjoy nine innings from the grandstands.

The Bats, Gloves, & Gadgets for Baseball Season

The Bats, Gloves, & Gadgets for Baseball Season

The ping of a baseball popping off an aluminum bat can herald a superhuman swat, but those high-velocity line drives can cause devastating injury to a collegiate or Little League player. New 2012 regulations known as BBCOR—inside baseball, that's "batted ball coefficient of restitution"—force bat manufacturers to find a way to make aluminum and composite bats perform more like wooden ones. To play by the new rules, some manufacturers have wedged discs inside the barrels, and others have slimmed down key spots of the bat's walls by hundredths of an inch. So do the sticks work? We took batting practice with two styles of the new bats, an Easton and a Louisville Slugger, along with a white ash classic. The bats hit with a wooden thump and a lower velocity than the aluminum of yore. But one stood out as the smoothest swinger with the biggest sweet spot. Turn the page to see the bat we'd take to the on-deck circle.

Easton Power Brigade S3

Easton Power Brigade S3

The exterior walls of the Easton Power Brigade S3 ($200) vary in thickness by thousandths of an inch, from the end of the taper to the barrel's fat sweet spot. Three testers agreed that this 33-inch model had the swiftest swing and the smoothest stroke. Vibration was as rare as the Cubs making the playoffs.